This is a continuation from a discussion on Carel-J's facebook page. We've moved it here because we ran into the limits of it on his page.

Carel-J spoke about the inerrancy(free from error) of the bible, its literal interpretation, including the message that some who think that they are saved my not be saved; But let me not speak for Carel-J - he can speak for himself in response to this post. Alternatively I can copy & pate the previous postes here.

Andries highlighted that the difference between many versions of Christianity is precisely because of different interpretations of scripture, and that the bible should not be literally interpreted, and in fact that the inerrancy of the bible should be in serious dispute.

The specific questions posed by Andries

A) Should the bible be interpreted entirely metaphorically/figuratively, entirely literally or parts LITERAL and parts FIGURATIVELY. If its the later, then who is the final authority on which parts to interpret literally and which figuratively. I don't believe there exists such.

B) I posit that there exists no proof that the Bible is more authoritatively the word of good than the Qu'ran. Please prove that the Bible is correct and the Qu'ran is false.

C) I don't believe the Bible is free from errors. In fact I believe I can proof that the bible contains serious contradictions, factual "lies" and factual errors. If the bible can be found to contain at least SOME serious errors (or even lies), then the entire credibility is in dispute, since the bible itself claims that it is THE PERFECT WORD OF GOD. I have summarised the facts related to the bibles errors on my website: www.NoahsImpossibleArk.com

Hilda Hecker

Also mention the fact that the contents of the "current" bible was decided on by Catholic vote (which we of course know have/had no agendas or personal ideologies). So much for the "word of god"....

02 Desember om 11:06 VM

Andries Malan

Hi Hilda we've already discussed differences between between Cathoholic & protestant bible. He believes the protestant version to be the real one, and the historical argument can go either way, so this is not a point I'm going to push.... PS: - This page is primarily for discussion between me and Carel - I might delete comments from other people if they detract from the main argument - please don't take offense if I do :-)

02 Desember om 11:36 VM

Alex Barrios

Maybe invite a theologian graduate whom may know more about textual criticism. Then you may have less opinions, void of emotions and more studied facts to discuss.

02 Desember om 11:54 VM

Andries Malan

If you have someone, that you can recommend please let me know. In the meantime Carel-J is a very smart fellow and he has made a pretty serious study of the bible, its history, and a doctrinal comparison between different Christian sub-groupings.

02 Desember om 12:09 NM

Alex Barrios

Cool! I can only share experiences with you, but I think you boys aren't really interested in the metaphysical. I'm not well versed on textual criticism.

02 Desember om 12:28 NM

Andries Malan

Yes the subject here under discussion is textual criticism, only.

02 Desember om 12:41 NM

Johanni Forster van Niekerk

How easy it is for non-believers to find criticism on the Bible. When you go through the Bible prayerfully, the Holy Spirit will guide you. Why I can know the Bible is the correct way, is because more than 2000 people saw Jesus ascend into heaven. All other things recorded in the Bible are the same as in other scripts- eg. the kings of the time, the fact that people had to be censused when Jesus was born, etc. Enough for me to accept the Bible and not the Qu'ran or any other "prayer books" Carel-J or I might not be good enough for reasoning with you, but remember- even Saten used scripture to try and get Jesus in the dessert by quoting scripture- but Jesus had the answers.... by understanding the scriptures!

02 Desember om 01:26 NM

Andries Malan

Do you have PROOF that these 2000 people saw it?

Don't assume Carel-J is not good enough to reason with me, he is a very smart fellow.

I openly challenge anyone to bring me the smartest most well studied biblical scholar to take up this same debate, but on a separate page, as this discussion is primarily between Carel-J and me.

Of course anyone is free to advice Carel-J and send useful facts to him.

Anyways this supposed witnessing by 2000, is not really relevant to the discussion of the textual accuracy of the bible.

I'm not asking for a list of things that happen to be correct in the bible, but rather I'm listing a specific list of things that are WRONG in the bible, and ask that they be explained.

02 Desember om 01:41 NM

Johanni Forster van Niekerk

No other historical facts from Bible was proven not to be true, so why will this one fact not be true? Do you have proof of the opposite? It is relevant, bec Jesus had to be God, as no other "god" lived after death. If one believes this, then will not be fixated on textual accuracy, but accept what you understand and what you do not understand. Thus- "now I know in part; then I shall know fully" You can call professors etc, but you will never get your answers, unless you have FAITH! Non of us wrote the Bible, thus will there be controvercies. As long as the message from God is understood. people will always have minor, irrelevant points to debate!

Rather talk about the message and all the good things and leave the things you don't understand, bec no-one can claim to have the set answer to all the things you don't understand.....

02 Desember om 02:33 NM

Andries Malan

‎@johanni, you say "No other historical facts from Bible was proven not to be true"

Unfortunately MANY historical facts from the has been PROVEN to not be true, including

* A world wide flood (noah's ark) - proved scientifically to never have happened. see www.noahsimpossibleark.com for some of the facts.

Theres a lot more, this is just some of them.

(There are more complicated debates that Nazareth never existed in Jesus' time, that the jew's track through the desert on their exodus out of egypt left no archeological traces etc... but I'm not an expert on all of these - so I stick to the Ark and bible contradictions)

Non Christian propaganda! It's like the "Elvis never died" and the "They were never on the moon" theories. I have a video series which prove all these- Noah's ark, "Daniel in the fire oven"," Samson who broke down the pillars", "the red sea that parted" etc etc Scientifically. O ye of little faith- I will not even waste my time reading these unfounded theories..... You are loosing the core of the Bible. It's not even written to proof that God is. Just to teach us the way of salvation.....

02 Desember om 06:06 NM

Johanni Forster van Niekerk

Carl, ha ha ha- she writes this and you believe her- I have a video where scientists shows how it was very possible. The choise is up to the the individual to believe God or man (by this I don't mean that my scientists are God- just that they prooved God's word to be true). Why is it that non-believers like so much to argue God's word? If you two are so sure it's all a scam, please take the energy and time to prove your theories of whatever religion you want to follow. "If we confess our sins He is fathfull and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteosness" this is free for you too- by faith alone!

02 Desember om 06:20 NM

Carl Sandrock

That article wasn't actually about what a particular journalist thinks, but rather what Jewish archeologists have found about Jewish history. If you choose to believe in entirely unprovable deities based on no evidence, that's your right and totally unassailable based on facts. My problem is more with consistency. I was raised religious and accepted many of these stories as the truth and was quite shocked when I started to do some research of my own. It's partly out of that sense of being cheated out of years worth of Sundays based on things that are really quite obviously wrong that people like Andries and I go on these kinds of long threads of argument ;-)

The scientist in me just wants to know what actually happened in a way that remains consistent with the best evidence of the day.

‎@Carl. I am christian, but I strongly agree in questioning. What you are doing is important. I think the replies you boys get is due to the focus on you being atheists. What's important to me is being truthful to oneself first of all in terms of knowing the sincere motivations behind a search (this is important because you are delving into something emotionally charged) and to find means of ensuring you remain objective (the fact that this is emotionally charged you can expect non-savoury reactions, and you being humans yourselves, you are not immune to responding emotionally and blowing all objectivity to merely prove a point). The search for truth is important, and if you both do it in earnest, I am sure you will find it without any human forcing their opinions on you, as no one on earth has any power to convince another over things which are supernatural and beyond science. Good luck guys, I will be curious to read your progress as you plod along a sea of information and sifting fact from opinion.

03 Desember om 02:00 NM

Alex Barrios

Why is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle a parallel to this discussion?

We may be stretching the mandate mentioned in the original post... Perhaps Andries will start deleting messages. Anyway - debating is an enjoyable pastime. Here's a good (and short - only 10min) video which aligns quite well with what I would say about the godandscience link Lack of belief in gods.

I must admit that although I enjoy crossing swords with believers from time to time, I don't have the "fresh-atheist" fervour that I had two years ago. At some point all the arguments start to repeat. Having said that, I must also point out that some religious people (not you Alex - you're remarkably mature about the debate) seem to believe that their beliefs are particularly deserving of respect.

It's strange that these people often have no qualms about belittling the "savage" or "unacceptable" aspects of other religions (suggest equal time for LaVey-style satanism in our schools for a laugh).

I've been a church-goer myself and I seem to remember some very clear indictments of other world-views with little thought to their sensitivities. Some of my friends did missionary work where the basic assumption was that the people they were going to save were so wrong that at worst they were going to hell and at best weren't going to heaven. But mention the blatant absurdity of a single boat containing the genetic history of the entire planet and you're not being sensitive. Let alone the quite laughable laws in Leviticus.

03 Desember om 03:40 NM

Johanni Forster van Niekerk

Carl, I have to apologise to you, because it was probably due to other Christ-followers like me, that you started questioning your Church believes. Far from perfect and far from doing all that God wants from me. Do your research, but remember that the Bible was not written as a proof to anything- not even of God's existence. God merely says that He is. Don't waste time on trying to find contradictions and "untrue facts", because again it's all up to the interpreter and debatable. Try to find what you are really seeking for- I guess it's an alternate religion, and try to proof it to yourselves as being the correct way to go. The fact that you so strongly want to be assured that you can proof the Bible to be insufficient give me hope that the Holy Spirit are still in you and that you are just in a place of doubt and uncertainty yourselves. Maybe you are debating more with your inner selves than with others. Christianity is the only religion who's God has risen from the dead. What happened to the Titanic after it was said that even God cannot sink it? I pray that you find peace with the true God!

03 Desember om 05:59 NM

Andries Malan

The untrue facts of the bible, I don't think is a debate (until Carel-J has responded), for now with huge lists of errors (and lies) listed with no proper dispelling of it, it can now be assumed to be a proven fact, unless someone proves otherwise.

THUS

**God may exist, but he did not write the bible.**

Most of what is written in Genesis, Exodus is a lie. If the bible contains so many errors and lies, this also means you have to take any parts of it that claim to tell you "the rules" for how to live your life best, with a teaspoon of salt!

Rather use common sense and logic to decide on the best rules to live your life by!

Do your own thinking. Test ideas. Don't let a 2000 year old book written by primitive people control your mind. (I don't care whether that book is called the Bible or Qu'ran)

And the truth shall set you free!

If this isn't the truth, PROVE IT. My points are proven by facts and logic.

03 Desember om 06:26 NM

Johanni Forster van Niekerk

Mine too! Your proof isn't my proof- Like I said- people also "proved that Elvis is still alive" and that "no-one walked on the moon". It didn't proof anything to me because I didn't believe them. I don't believe your science behind the things you claim, because I have other scientists proving my facts for me. So it's rather a case of which scientists to believe..... You believe yours and I believe mine, so please stop saying that your facts and believes about the Bible are correct, because your "facts are based on whatever you choose to accept, just as my facts are based on whatever makes sense to me" Most definitely your believes and the scientists you choose to follow are not the set truth- ONLY TO YOU AND SOME OTHERS! The audacity of you to quote Scripture in such a wrongful manner....

04 Desember om 12:21 VM

Andries Malan

The problems where the bible contradicts itself with facts, are open for anyone with a bible to test. You don't need to believe anyone else to verify these things.

You are confusing conspiracy theories with REAL SCIENCE dear.

04 Desember om 03:12 NM

Andries Malan

There is no such thing as "which scientists you believe". In science, competing theories are tested against evidence.

My evidence is so obvious anyone with university level science and biology subjects can verify it for themselves.

I'm going to start deleting these dumb rhetoric posts which does not refer to any actual evidence, and does not make any sincere attempt to answer any of the 3 questions that I've posted above.

Let me simplify it to the following

1) Please prove that the bible is more authorative and more correct than the Qu'ran.

2) Please indicate why factual contradictions in the bible does not invalidate its integrity and its status as inerrant (perfect and complete - free from errors) word of God.

3) Please respond to the basic problems that prove that Noah's ark and the great flood didn't happen, namely:

3.1 The geological evidence shows that no world wide flood has every occured on earth (definitely not since animal life has existed)

3.2 By the time people existed on earth, there were millions of species of animals on earth. They and their food couldn't have fit into the ark. Also all the animals on earth didn't live near Noah's house, and would have had to cross deserts and oceans to get there, and the time needed to load them would have exceeded the 7 days God gave Noah.

3.3 The flood causes fresh & sea water to become one water mass. Fresh water creatures don't survice in saline water, and sea creatures don't survice in fresh water. No provision was made for any water dwelling creatures.

3.4 The pair per specie (and some 7), would have been too few both in terms of inbreeding problems, but also immediately after the ark stopped, the preditors would have driven too many other species to immediate extinction.

3.5 The size of the ark constructed in wood is proven not to be able to be seaworthy. Wooden ships 30-50% smaller, even re-enforced with large amounts of iron bars need constant pumping and then still sink due to leakage problems. (see: List of world's largest wooden ships)

04 Desember om 03:29 NM

Hilda Hecker

mense is nou ewe skielik stil........

08 Desember om 11:00 VM

Andries Malan

‎:-) Toemaar, ek glo Carel-J is "gathering his forces"

08 Desember om 11:16 VM

Carel-J Rischmuller

Ek probeer hard. My forces blyk net so toegegooi te wees soos ek. :)

13 Desember om 08:40 NM

Daniel Louw

I will try to help. It is very important to realise the following things:

1. Good arguments do not necessarily win arguments. One can come with the best arguments, but still not convince the other person. Nobody is really objective.

3. All of us have figuratively glasses - the glasses you have on will determine how you interpret the factual data. Ie in geology people dig up things (which are fact) but which need interpretation.

4. Just like I will not be able to proof God, no-one will be able to disprove Him. And all people have to believe in something, even atheists that claim they only believe from facts. That is a lie. Christians believe that God created and atheists believe that everything happened by chance and believe that we will in the future be able to explain how things could have happened by pure chance. And for some things the chance is so low, to believe in that requires more faith than to believe in God. See Is there scientific proof of the existence of God? and Meer oor waarskynlikhede en Hawking (it is unfortunately in Afrikaans, but there are links to English articles).

How should one interpret the Bible: Take history as history, poetry as poetry, prophecy as prophecy etc. See Should Genesis be taken literally?. For example, the Bible does not teach a flat earth on 4 pillars - that is used in poetry and that is what people believed in those days. But the Bible is clear that God created in 6 days and 4004 BC - that should be read as history.

I have looked at www.NoahsImpossibleArk.com and they want to claim that the whole ark story was impossible. There are people that claim that the ark would have been very stable. But see Noah’s Ark Questions and Answers to answer a few questions. It will be very difficult to prove that the ark-story was impossible since we are working with historical science. And it is not a valid argument to argue that since we don't know how it could be done, therefore it is impossible and therefore is the Bible wrong.

Do we have PROOF that Jan van Riebeeck ever existed and came to SA on 16 April 1652 with 5 ships? No, we cannot proof it - we believe the people which had written it up for us as history. And that is the same with the Bible. See:

The level of proof for Jan van Riebeeck truly outclasses the level of proof that exist for Jesus.

The 2000 people who supposedly saw such a huge miracle, left miraculously little evidence, whilst the thousands of people touched by JVR's arrival at the cape left significant evidence.

Millions of europeans. Several independent written records, from several different angles, not contradicting each other. Archeological & Historic artifacts left behind that you can view in museams that have been scientifically and historically validated. (Ships, cannons, guns, diaries)

Further there doesn't exist CONTRARY evidence showing that JVR never landed, while there does exist plenty of evidence that suggests that the Jesus story is false, for example: several jesus like myths existed before jesus, but with other names and minor changes in the details - strongly suggesting that jesus was a composite character created from either many mythologies or from many different actual persons.

The fact that several other "jesus like characters" existed at wildly different times, shows it is more like an urban legend than a real historical fact. Worse, the archeology of Nazareth shows that it didn't exist in Jesus time, despite the Catholic church's "own archeologists" and others trying to fabricate false evidence. This has been convincingly debunked, and the apologists explanations don't seem to hold water upon closer investigation.

HOWEVER: My main points IS NOT to attack the existence of Jesus, merely the inerrancy (absolute perfect truth) of the Bible, and thereby COMPLETELY AND CONVINCINGLY destroy any and all literal interpretation of the bible.

I believe I have utterly devastating proof that the bible was written by fallible human beings, and not by the perfect hand of [a] God.

That is what my three main questions lead into. Noahs Ark is easy to proof to be a lie; The bible contradicts itself often in a way that materially affects factual accuracy; The Bible and The Qu'ran have at best equally strong basis to say that they are the one and only true word of god, yet, at best only 1 could be correct. I have several explanation videos on youtube that shows devout christian scholars converting to Islam. The fact that so many of these exist, with VERY CONVINCING ARGUMENTS, should already be worrying to you if you are a christian.

I'd prefer us to stay focussed around the core 3 questions that I pose. If all 3 these questions cannot be resolved, your faith is blind faith contradicted by the facts. These 3 questions are my challenge to you and Carel-J.

19 Desember om 05:00 VM

Daniel Louw

Andries, of course there will be more evidence for Jan van Riebeeck because it happened much more recently and in a time where much more people were literate. In 80 AC only ~3% of people were literate. And no proof for something is not proof that it did not existed.

On archeology: remember that this is historical science (as I have mentioned earlier), thus your conclusion will depend much on your assumptions and figuratively glasses you have on. With the correct assumptions, archeology supports the Bible. See:

Tell me, do you believe that Julius Caesar existed? If so, why do you decide not to believe the New Testament in the Bible? The Bible is officially(?) the most reliable ancient document of all documents there are. See:

As CMI has pointed out before (The Nativity: Fact or Fiction?), the Gospel reports compare extremely favorably with other famous historical events that historians have no trouble accepting :

There are two generally reliable accounts of Hannibal (247–183 BC ) crossing the Alps in 218 BC to attack Rome. Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek historian, chronicled Hannibal’s invasion at least 50 years after the actual event.7 Livy (c. 59 BC – AD 17), a Roman historian, wrote of Hannibal’s invasion about 190 years after the actual event.8

Another famous event in history was Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC without disbanding his army.9 Suetonius (c. 69/75 – after 130), a Roman historian, wrote his historical account of Caesar crossing the Rubicon at least 110 years after the event,10 and it is considered to be generally reliable. In addition, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great, written by Arrian and Plutarch, were written over 400 years after his death.11 And these biographies are considered to be generally trustworthy.

Many scholars date Luke’s Gospel around AD 80. However, they tend to ignore the cogent arguments of the liberal New Testament scholar J.A.T. Robinson for dating all the Gospels from AD 40–65 (see a summary of the reasons, and more information). Thus Luke should be dated around AD 60, since it is the first of Luke’s two-volume work.3 But even if the older were true, then Luke’s Gospel was written about fifty years after Christ.

Why is this important? Temporal proximity is a crucial factor in establishing historical reliability. In other words, the closer the writings are to the actual events, the more likely they are to be accurate and free from legendary contamination.

When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today!

(Lees gerus die hele dokument!)

Andries wrote: "The bible contradicts itself often in a way that materially affects factual accuracy"

Andries wrote: “I believe I have utterly devastating proof that the bible was written by fallible human beings, and not by the perfect hand of [a] God.”

Yes, the Bible was written by humans, but we believe that they were inspired by God (2 Tim 3:16). You cannot possibly argue that because the Bible contains minor changes in the details therefore the whole Bible is not true. With that standard you will not find anything to be true. Lee Strobel writes in the book “A Case for Christ” that the minor differences in for example the 4 evangelicals (Mathew, Mark, Luke and John) increases the integrity of the story: If all four of them were exactly the same, then people would argue that they plotted beforehand. They use the same principle in court cases: if 4 witnesses tell the same story but with minor differences, they do not reject all 4 accounts because of the minor differences. And if different witnesses’ accounts are too similar, it sometimes gets rejected because it is proof that they plotted beforehand.

It is easy to critise Chritianity and the Bible, but I would love to hear you defend your faith :-).

19 Desember om 04:19 NM

Daniel Louw

Something I forgot:

Andries wrote: "several jesus like myths existed before jesus, but with other names and minor changes in the details - strongly suggesting that jesus was a composite character created from either many mythologies or from many different actual persons."

Wow, I know this should be a debate between Andries and I, but Daniel you are much better schooled than I am to take this on.

20 Desember 2010 om 06:49 VM · Hou van

Andries Malan

Right that is quite a bit of material, I will go through it, and respond soon.

15 ure gelede · Hou van

Andries Malan

Ok there is so much material through these links. There are lots of major problems with a lot of the material there, but there is just so much of it that it would be quite a long list to reply to.

Can I perhaps ask a very simple question - part of my initial 3 questions, and just hear you answer this one simple question, instead of dumping tons of links.

NOAHS ARK - Specifically my statement that God (or the primitive men that wrote the bible) forgot about the fish.

The bible makes it quite clear that no fish were loaded onto the ark. The bible specifically mentions veld animals, all crawling insects and birds, and noahs immediate family, plus food provisions, were loaded. Fish definitely not mentioned.

Would you agree with me that Sea/water creatures were not loaded?

This is of course a trick question, because if they were loaded, the species would be too many to fit into the ark, and how on earth did they rise up from the ocean floors, and walk into the ark (as the bible describes)?

15 ure gelede · Hou van

Carel-J Rischmuller

Here a response from me and Daniel (he is unable to connect to Facebook now so sent his response)

First, one of the videos also insinuated (or said blatantly, I can't remember) that God punished the animals, and why then were punishment based on whether you can swim or not. The Bible is clear that God's wrath was against mankind. The main aim was to destroy man. Yes, most (non-swimming) animals also died, because God had to ensure there would be no place for men (and thus animals) to hide from the wrath.

See Genesis 6:5–7 (NIV)

5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”

So the fact that fish weren't "punished" is therefore immaterial.

From Daniel:

Andries, but why is it necessary to put fish in a tank and put them into the ark if you are preparing for a world wide flood? There would have been more than enough water for the fishes.

(14) They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. [Note, nothing about fishes.] (15) And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. (21) And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: (22) all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was on the dry land, died. [Again nothing about creatures living in water] (23) And every living thing was destroyed that was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens [Again nothing about creatures living in water]; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark.

Your next question is probably going to be: “How could freshwater fish and land plants have survived a global flood?”

Possible options are also listed in the same article.

4 ure gelede · Hou van

Andries Malan

No you missed the point that I wanted to make ENTIRELY.

Perhaps it is because I didn't state the other side of the question, and didn't tell you WHY I am asking you to tell me whether the water creatures/sea fishes etc were on the ark.

This is indeed a trick question.

I am asking if these creatures were on the ark, which is suggested by the bible that they were not - as you correctly show. I also indicated that this would have been an impossibility - in other words these creatures couldn't have been on the ark, because that would have required massive aquariums with constantly replaced seawater... just imagine having two sperm whales onboard the ark... Clearly, the obvious answer is NO, THESE CREATURES DEFINITELY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ON THE ARK, and the bible strongly indicates that they weren't.

HOWEVER: This creates a second even bigger problem.

Salt water has a salinity of 3% while fresh water is something like 0.003, and most fresh water fish and fresh water animals die almost immediately in seawater, and most seawater creatures DIE IMMEDIATELY in fresh water.

The flood unified all the worlds watermasses into one, most likely (according to the descriptions of the bible of mostly rains and some fountains) fresh water. To cover the whole earth up the highest maintains (kilometers upwards), would have reduced the salinity to unliveable conditions for sea creatures.

Obviously primitive people who wrote the bible (and just like you almost stepped into this very same problem), didn't realise this.

22 Desember 2010 om 01:14 VM

Andries Malan

One of the things you posted: How did fish and plant survive the genesis flood - refers only to certain special isolated cases of very special creatures that might have survived, invokes tons of special situations which are contradicted by evidence, and then finally tries to convince us that the fossil record showed a massive extinction of sea creatures coinciding with this flood event (blatantly absurd - because where did todays sea biodiversity suddenly re-emerge from?)

If you wish to counter the above, don't throw 20 vague possible explanations, give me your best one, and I will disprove it, then give me your next best one, and I will disprove it systematically.

22 Desember 2010 om 01:20 VM

Daniel Louw

Andries, sorry for not writing sooner. I will try to answer you tomorrow or the day after that. In the mean time, something else for you to think about:

******

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Isaiah 9:13, NIV

This Christmas season a very unusual phenomenon has been seen on British television - a new dramatised version of the nativity in which the writer has portrayed the core truth of the incarnation as fact, as opposed to fiction! Tony Jordan is better known for writing scripts of a much more earthy nature for one of the UK’s longest-running soap operas, Eastenders. In normal circumstances he could not have been expected to have to have done such justice to what the Bible teaches.

The brief from the BBC was to write something pretty wacky about the nativity. He says that when he started on the project he didn’t believe in the nativity story. But the more he thought about it he realised “it would be a travesty to take the most beautiful story in the history of the world and turn it into a cheap gag.” So he began reading the story for himself and researching the facts of what the Bible says happened and he made a few surprising discoveries – both about Jesus and about himself!

When asked by the Daily Telegraph reporter about believing in the fact of the Virgin Birth, Jordan replied, “If you accept that Jesus is the Son of God, why would you not believe that Mary was a virgin, and that God must have had some hand in the impregnation?” And he followed this comment by saying, “The only thing I know for sure is that the words I read as coming from Jesus Christ are the most truthful thing I have ever heard!”

It’s no surprise, therefore, that the Editor of the Daily Telegraph headed his own comments on the article by the words ‘A born-again Nativity.’

We are living in an age when the facts of Christmas are no longer politically acceptable. The decorated tree in the White House is called a Holiday Tree! And it is reported that of all the cards on sale in British supermarkets, less than one per cent have any relationship to the facts of the Christmas story! These are days which are increasingly dark spiritually and in which it is becoming more and more costly to personally adhere to Christian truth, as the normal standard for faith and conduct. But in the midst of the darkness a shining fact remains – when people, even professional script-writers such as Tony Jordan, approach the Scriptures with a desire to know the truth, that the God of Truth will reveal Himself to them.

The virgin birth is, indeed, a sign to the whole world that God is with us. The incarnation tells us above all else that God loved the world so much that He gave His only son that we might have everlasting life (John 3:16). To know that we are loved is the deepest and most intimate need of every member of the human race. You ARE loved – the nativity story declares that one glorious fact above all others. It’s easy to love someone who we know loves us, so absorbing this astonishing truth for ourselves is the beginning of the most exciting pilgrimage of all – loving Him, who first loved us, and walking together with Him for the rest of our days.

Andries, back to Noah’s ark: Richard Dawkins writes on page 140-141 in his book “The God Delusion”, the following: “The anthoropic principle states that, since we are alive, eucoryotic and conscious, our planet has to be one of the intensely rare planets that has bridged all three gaps.”

I guess you will not accept this kind of argument from me: that since there are sea and fresh water animals today, therefore somehow they did survive the flood :-).

Many estuarine and tidepool species are able to tolerate wide changes in salinity.

There are migratory species of fish which travel between salt and fresh water.

This suggests that the ability to tolerate wide changes in salinity could have been present in most fish at the time of the Flood. Specialisation may have resulted in the loss of this ability in many species since then.

Freshwater can sit on top of saltwater for extended periods of time.

Which things in the article do you feel are absolutely impossible?

You say: “...convince us that the fossil record showed a massive extinction of sea creatures coinciding with this flood event (blatantly absurd - because where did todays sea biodiversity suddenly re-emerge from?)”There could have been a massive extinction of sea creatures without becoming extinct. A lot of animals dying does not mean everything died.

26 Desember 2010 om 21:20

Daniel Louw

Andries, by the way, you say that you keep with facts and logic. What about the following three points:

1. Where does matter come from: Facts: Matter cannot be created or destroyed. There are lots of matter in the universe. Atheists believe that it somehow appeared. Are there any hypoteses for this problem?

2. Where does energy come from: Facts: Energy cannot be created or destroyed. There are lots of energy in the universe. For example, where did the energy for the sun came from? It burns out, thus Someone had to start it. (Waar kom al die nuttige energie vandaan?)

3. Where does information come from: Facts: There are lots of information in all living creatures' DNA. Information has never been observed to spontaneously appear. Evolution needs a spontaneous increase in genetic information but yet it has never been observed happening. (Sel DNS-inligting bewys vir IO)

My opinion is that the "problems" concerning Noah's ark are minute compared to these problems.

I am off the point, but at some stage I would like to hear from you what you believe regarding these issues.

26 Desember 2010 om 21:46

Andries Malan

Yes indeed this is off the point. I'd like us to get back to Noah's ark and the many contradictions of the bible, and other absurdities and injustices of it.

My argument is not that "God" doesn't exist, just that if God does exist, he is DEFINITELY NOT the author of the bible, and the God described in the bible is definitely not the creator of our universe.

You have a much harder burden of proof than you realise - Not only must you proof that GOD exists, but also that the one that exists is THE CHRISTIAN GOD of the bible.

However, I'll happily respond to your points above:

1. WHERE DOES MATTER COME FROM

You say matter cannot be created or destroyed. Of course this is incorrect, since matter can be created from energy, and matter can be destroyed (converted) into energy according to Einstein's formula e=mc^2.

Sub-atomic particles appear and disappear all the time on the quantum level, appearing with particles and anti-particles. These pairs appear briefly, then disappear again out of our universe.

2. WHERE DOES ENERGY COME FROM

Indeed it appears energy in a closed system is preserved. You are stating that "Someone" had to create it. Why not "Something" ? You are automatically committing a personification bias here in causality.

Even if it was "Someone", then it is entirely possible that our universe (and its initial energy) was created by a super advanced alien being that annihilated himself in the process.

I've read the link you've posted on point 2, and the afrikaans author is blatantly lying and mistating scientific facts. The main one being that he states the beginning state of the universe was 0 degrees Kelvin (-273 Celcius), when in fact scientists have always maintained that the beginning point was the singularity at nearly infinite heat. The starting point of his entire argument is thus a blatant lie, or at best a confusion between the concepts of "No Universe" (which implies our spatial dimentions as we know them today did not exist as they do today) with the notion of an empty universe filled with no matter.

3. WHERE DOES INFORMATION (ESPECIALLY IN DNA) COME FROM

I saw the DNA/Information-only-from-a-conscious-mind hypotheses originally from Perry Marshall's website cosmicfingerprints.com where he calls it the "Atheists Riddle".

This is a hypothesis, and hard to prove (since proving it involves one testing ALL sources of information), but easy to disprove if just one such non-mind created set of information can be found. It also rests on several assumptions about what constitutes coded information.

I believe this "proof", "theory", "hypothesis" commits an epistemological error, because it relies a circular argument as follows:

It assumes only a conscious mind can create coded information; DNA is coded information; Thus DNA must have been created from/by a conscious mind.

Equally valid, however is the possibility that: DNA was created by a natural process; DNA represents coded information; Thus not all sources of coded information originates from a conscious mind.

Since scientists have convincingly demonstrated how DNA strands can form (spontaneously) from a primordial soup over millions of years, the latter argument is more scientifically sound than the first one.

Noah and other Bible mistakes are not trivial if Christians, the Church and the bible itself, claim it to be the perfect, inerrant, and complete word of God.

The Perfect word of (a) God would not contain scientific flaws, internal contradictions and morally objectionable instructions, since be definition it would be perfect.

27 Desember 2010 om 12:00

Daniel Louw

Andries, the last I said about Noah’s ark is the post where I start with: “Andries, back to Noah’s ark: Richard Dawkins writes...”. Thus you can answer that post to come back to the topic of discussion.

Andries said: “...matter can be created from energy, and matter can be destroyed (converted) into energy according to Einstein's formula e=mc^2.” You are correct. I also said that in my debate with Hennie at Izak du Plessis se blog en Henk/Hennie.html, but you always need to explain where the energy came from.

Andries said: “You are stating that "Someone" had to create it. Why not "Something" ?” Correct, but what? If you believe in a god, then it is logical to believe that God created.

Andries said: “...then it is entirely possible that our universe (and its initial energy) was created by a super advanced alien being that annihilated himself in the process.” It seems that is what Dawkins and Hawking also believe, but (1) there is no prove for aliens and (2) where did the aliens came from? See Alien life UFO Questions and Answers.

Andries said: “...that he states the beginning state of the universe was 0 degrees Kelvin (-273 Celcius), when in fact scientists have always maintained that the beginning point was the singularity at nearly infinite heat.” If there was nothing before the big bang 15 billion years ago (like secular scientists believe), then it means there was NO matter and NO energy. Thus, the temperature of the universe was 0 Kelvin. Of course you needed infinite heat for the big bang to happen, but where did the infinite heat come from?

Andries said: “I believe this "proof", "theory", "hypothesis" commits an epistemological error, because it relies a circular argument as follows: It assumes only a conscious mind can create coded information; DNA is coded information; Thus DNA must have been created from/by a conscious mind. Equally valid, however is the possibility that: DNA was created by a natural process; DNA represents coded information; Thus not all sources of coded information originates from a conscious mind.” Technically you are correct, but it has never been observed/proven. This is exactly why I say that atheism is also a religion: although atheists always claim that they only work with facts and proof, they are willing to BELIEVE that things could have happened by unproven mechanisms. If one only wants to believe facts and proof, then there is not much one can say about a lot of things. And this again shows that atheism is not a position due to facts, but due to a decision not to believe in a god.

Andries said: “Since scientists have convincingly demonstrated how DNA strands can form (spontaneously) from a primordial soup over millions of years, the latter argument is more scientifically sound than the first one.”I didn’t know that. Can you show me proof of this? Where did you read this?

27 Desember 2010 om 22:39

Andries Malan

Right, lets continue from that point. I don't see much relevance with Richard Dawkins to the Ark, unless you quote something more specific that he has said. Also my arguments about the ark stand independent from anything he might have said.

ok you state correctly that "Many animals" died does not imply that ALL of them died, so presumably enough could have survived to perpetuate their respective species.

Thus I'll assume that you are implying that no massive extinction level event happened as a result of the flood. In other words, even if MANY individuals died, NO SPECIES died as a result of the flood. (Or only a negligible percentage)

If this is your stated opinion, I am confused since your own material contradicts this in CF point 7 when it states:

"Many marine creatures would have been killed in the Flood because of the turbidity of the water, changes in temperature, etc. The fossil record testifies to the massive destruction of marine life with 95% of the fossil record accounted for by marine creatures."

Unfortunately your referenced page also commits an error, by confusing MANY species with ALL species, in CF points 3-6.

I also seriously doubt the scientific validity of point CF 8:

"There is a possibility that stable fresh and saltwater layers developed and persisted in some parts of the earth. Freshwater can sit on top of saltwater for extended periods of time."

27 Desember om 10:53

Daniel Louw

Andries said: " I don't see much relevance with Richard Dawkins to the Ark"No relevance to the ark, but look as his approach: he says that since there is no God and we are here, it proves that the almost impossible did happen. This is circular reasoning.

You earlier said: "I believe this "proof", "theory", "hypothesis" commits an epistemological error, because it relies a circular argument as follows: It assumes only a conscious mind can create coded information; DNA is coded information; Thus DNA must have been created from/by a conscious mind."

I have already commented to this, but I want to add something. Isn't this what atheists/science rather are doing? They exclude God as a possible answer right from the start with their assumption that there is no god. I believe that God supplied matter and energy, put earth on a special place so that life is possible on earth, created life and supplied (DNA) information since these things cannot be explained by science. And even if was possible by chance, this probability is so low that it is worse than believing in a god. And on top of it, the Bible tells us that God created, thus I would not say that it is such a bad conclusion to make to say that God did it.

Andries said: "In other words, even if MANY individuals died, NO SPECIES died as a result of the flood...Please confirm your position on this."That is 100% correct - although a lot of water creatures died out, no kind died out. We only needed 2 animals per kind to continue their survival.

Andries said: "I am confused since your own material contradicts this in CF point 7 when it states:"I don't understand your confusion. Say for example there were 10000 animals of a specific kind and 9998 died, it is a lot of animals that died, but only 2 surviving is enough to continue their survival. Didn't you clarify this just above when you said: "In other words, even if MANY individuals died, NO SPECIES died as a result of the flood"?

Andries said: "Unfortunately your referenced page also commits an error, by confusing MANY species with ALL species, in CF points 3-6."Since we observe today that "Many estuarine and tidepool species are able to tolerate wide changes in salinity." it might be possible that ALL species could have tolerated this in the past, but "Specialisation may have resulted in the loss of this ability in many species since then."

Andries said: "I also seriously doubt the scientific validity of point CF 8:"Why? You said you will disprove that Noah's ark could have happened. Can you prove that this was impossible to happen?

28 Desember om 06:24

Andries Malan

OK, i think we agree then that the Atheists Riddle (DNA & Conscious minds), is a circular argument, so even without the cases where I offered coded information originating from natural processes, logically it doesn't proof anything - because of this circularity, which makes it highly dependant on your starting point assumption.

The same as you pointed could go for whether God exists or not - BUT there is a special exception possible here. Comparing the theistic argument with the anthropomorphic argument IN THE ABSENCE OF evidence, they could both be seen as equally circular. However, when EVIDENCE is considered, it could easily tip the balance. This I believe is provided by many of the latest findings in cosmology, fundamental physics research and theoretical physics.

Even if by some miracly you could PROVE God did it, you are still going to have a hard time proving that it is the God of the Bible, and NOT the God of the Qu'ran or other religion that 'did it'.

Anyways, back to the Ark.

Let me clarify and respond to the points:

--

Andries said: "I am confused since your own material contradicts this in CF point 7 when it states:" Basically you are stating that individuals died, but not species (Please let me know if you define "Kind" different from specie. A specie is a grouping that is reproductively isolated from another group).

We are then both in agreement as to your position.

However, your own materials state in CF 7:"The fossil record testifies to the massive destruction of marine life with 95% of the fossil record accounted for by marine creatures." We all know that the fossil record documents not just the death of many "individuals" but the extinction of many species.

That is why I say your materials contradict your point that individuals died without wiping out the species/kinds.

--

CF 7 actually commits another lie, when compared to scientific evidence - it conveniently left out half the extinction story.

It states that 95% of the extinction consisted of marine animals, when the actual scientific fact is that 96% of all marine species died out in this extinction event, AND 70% of all land vertebrates. (See: Permian–Triassic extinction event)

--

Date/Ordering problem. These extinction events in the fossil record are dated hundreds of millions of years ago. Even if the dates are not 100% accurate, what is 100% certain, is that these events occured LONG BEFORE humans ever walked the earth.

--

You are stating that species had the ability to withstand extreme changes in salinity before the great flood, and then promptly most of them lost this ability after the flood. Please PROOF this.

This should be easy to proof, since the kidneys and water expulsion/salt excretion organs are different for sea and freshwater animals. So the fossil record should be able to confirm that there existed the roughly the same animals as today, but with the opposite anatomical machinery. :-) Proof it

---

Here you are challenging me to PROOF why I challenged your CF 8, I will gladly now attempt to do so.

CF 8 states that you can layer fresh water on top of salt water for extended periods of time, without them intermingling.

This anyone can disprove for himself at home, simply by grabbing a large container, a sack of salt, and some water.

First create a saline solution (any concentration will do, but to support your theory make it super concentrated), Fill your bucket say 1/3 of the way with this solution.

Now carefully add fresh water into the bucket, with a sprayer or mister if you want to simulate rain.

Leave the bucket for a while (the bible's account would have you test it for at least half a year), but I think a day should be enough.

Then carefully scoop out a glass of water from the top and taste it. It should be salty.

If you solution was extremely saturated you may have some salt crystal formation at the bottom, but this will in no way affect the fact that the entire water mass will become saline.

If you used a less concentrated saline solution for your initial 1/3 you will find that the entire solution has become much less saline after you added the fresh water, and if you used a vacume tube to extract some water from the bottom, you will find the lower portion to be equally unsaline in that case.

Of course, during the proposed great flood, the waters were not just stationary - this was a world wide ocean with storms and huge waves and underwater currents.

But even with none such disturbing motions to mix things up, simple osmosis/brownian motion would certainly cause the two water masses to mix up and unify.

I trust that I have now PROVEN that CF 8 is a joke?

There is no possible way that this explanation could be accepted as reasonable.

28 Desember 2010 om 09:34

Daniel Louw

Andries said: “Please let me know if you define "Kind" different from specie.” Creationists’ define the difference between a kind and species as follows:

Species: Different species in the same kind is for example lions and tigers. Another example is mammoths, African elephants and Indian elephants.

Kinds: Different kinds are the elephant-family, cat-family, dog-family, etc.

Andries said: “We all know that the fossil record documents not just the death of many "individuals" but the extinction of many species.” Yes, we know that a number of species got extinct. The dodo is another example. But they did not necessarily got extinct with the flood. We believe that all dinosaurs were on the ark and got extinct later. There are proof that dinosaurs lived together with people and later got extinct. See Dinosaur Questions and Answers.

Regarding the Permian–Triassic extinction event: Maybe you should think differently about this Permian–Triassic extinction event. What about this Permian–Triassic extinction event was though up because of two facts: (1) there are a lot of fossils which seems to have been buried suddenly and (2) the fossil record shows a number of extinct species. What about trying to explain it with Noah’s flood: there was a flood that killed millions of animals suddenly (not necessarily becoming extinct). There are a number of species that got extinct, but two of every kind survived. What those kinds were, God knows, literally :-). After the flood a number of other kinds/species got extinct due to changing weather, people hunting them, etc. Also remember the coelacanth that was thought to be extinct millions of years ago and then was not. Historical science is far from exact.

I know that they date this extinction millions of years ago, but radiometric dating is not at all accurate. For example, no-one has ever found carbon-based material (ie diamonds, coal and fossil bones) that does not contain C-14, which limits the age of it to 250000 years. Another example is where they tested things that should be 100’s of years old, but the results showed that it should be 10-100 thousands of years old. This is a whole topic on its own, but for more on radiometric dating, see Radiometric dating questions and answers. Russell Humphreys said: “There is a little-known irony in the controversy between creationists and evolutionists about the age of the world. The majority of scientists—the evolutionists—rely on a minority of the relevant data. Yet a minority of scientists—the creationists—use the majority of the relevant data. Adding to the irony is the public’s wrong impression that it is the other way around. Therefore, many ask: ‘If the evidence is so strongly for a young earth, why do most scientists believe otherwise?’ The answer is simple: Most scientists believe the earth is old because they believe most other scientists believe the earth is old!” (from Why Most Scientists Believe the World is Old). To demostrate this, see ‘Young’ age of the Earth & Universe Q&A, 101 evidences for a young age of the earth and Evidence for a Young World.

Andries said: “You are stating that species had the ability to withstand extreme changes in salinity before the great flood, and then promptly most of them lost this ability after the flood. Please PROOF this.” Just as I will struggle to proof it, so you will struggle to disprove it. We are working with historical science (It's not science). Organs do not easily fossilize. Can you prove it?

Andries said: “I trust that I have now PROVEN that CF 8 is a joke?” Not so fast. The scenario that you present makes sense, but even if you have proven it by experiment, they you have only proven it for a micro system. It is not to say that it will not be valid for a world wide flood. Further, die article says: “There is a possibility...”. Thus, the authors do realise that there is a possibility that this will not be feasible. However, the probability of this being possible is probably much, much better than life to spontaneously happen from pond scum, but atheists are willing to believe that (see Meer oor waarskynlikhede en Hawking).

Another thing to think about is: say the Bible told about the pyramids in enough detail that we would know how precise they were built, but for some reason they were destroyed – thus there are no proof of them. Would you have believed the Bible? Probably not, because you would have said that it would have been impossible for people with such limited technology to build such things. But since they are there, we have to believe that they were built with high precision even though we don’t have a clue who could have built them. My point is, a global flood and both fresh water and salt water fishes surviving it, might sound impossible, but we were not there. We don’t know what precisely happened. We are working with historical science. It will be very difficult to either prove or disprove it.

By the way, do you know that even secular scientists realise that there had to be catastrophes to explain today’s geology? See Up with Catastrophism!.

29 Desember 2010 om 21:26

Andries Malan

I'm sorry, but you have not properly reponded to my statement that "Proposing that a layer of fresh water will lie on top of a layer of salt water, undisturbed for half a year, IS A JOKE".

Are you saying this will work with large bodies of water, but not with small bodies of water?

Shall we ask some chemical engineers and chemists about this?

29 Desember 2010 om 23:00

Daniel Louw

I am a chemical engineer and I know that things on small scale is not the same when scaling it up - sometimes the differences are significant. One can probably try to simulate it with CFD (computational fluid dynamics), but the problem is what one should assume the starting conditions are. One can probably try different starting conditions until one find something that works.

I still think that the probability of this scenario working is much more probable than life starting with a bolt of lighting from pond scum. And then is this scenario (salt water not mixing with fresh water) not the only possibility - there are other options on the CF list.

30 Desember 2010 om 07:13

Andries Malan

You are steering off topic here by comparing to the probability of the formation of life.

My point here is only to proof that your source (Creation Ministeries), are lying about basic scientific facts, that even someone with a high school education can disprove.

For example, primary school science taught me about brownian motion of gasses. In high school biology I was taught about diffusion and osmosis.

My experience diving in the ocean taught me about waves, and ripcurrents below the surface.

Even just a little bit of imagination extrapolates this basic information to that a sea of freshwater that is supposed to sit on top of a sea of salt water.

Even a simple thought experiment about having any size mass of salt water, with each subsequent addition of a drop of rain water, every such additional drop will immediately be mixed up with the rest of the water. Even if you assume water sources injecting from the earth's crust (likely in the form of high pressure water jets) - its not hard to visualise the same effect in your mind on a larger scale.

Since you are stubbornly pretending that something radically would have happened on this scale, I will happily consult with university level scientists and engineers.

Its not that I don't trust your engineering degree's quality, rather I'm worried that your mind is so biased to your own religious agenda that you are not willing to apply the basic scientific principles that you have been taught there.

I will ask as many scientifically qualified people about this as I can. Hopefully my assertion and my thought experiments really are as simple as I think. We will soon know. I will post back as soon as I've talked to some people, and consulted some science materials.

10 ure gelede · Hou van

Carl Sandrock

About "everyone believes something" (point 4 in your first post). Apart from this being a blatant "You, too" argument Tu quoque I will put in my two cents on this often misused argument. It is true that no-one has the time to inspect every single scientific result and verify it experimentally themselves, so some things are "taken on faith" in a manner of speaking. However, the fundamental difference between a faith-based and skeptical approach is that the results can be falsified and that this is encouraged by the scientific community. The Christian approach is to explicitly forbid tests of the existence of its God, in other words untested belief is the default position. Speaking for myself, I would definitely try to exhaust the physical explanations for a particular phenomenon before thinking of a supernatural one. And of course, deities are so multifunctional that they can stand in for almost everything we don't understand. It is the strength of such assumptions that make them hard to make.

Also, about the stuff the bible got right: the claim that the bible contains some untrue statements is not the same as the claim that it contains no true statements, so pointing out true statements in the bible does not weaken the claim that it contains some untruths. If it does contain some untruths it cannot be properly called inerrant.

6 ure gelede · Hou van

Daniel Louw

Andries, maybe I am a bit off the topic, but you want to ridicule the Bible while you have a beam in your own eye (Matt 7:3).

Go and find out for yourself then. It is unbelievable that you want to accuse CMI of lying while they are saying: "There is a possibility...". A number of people accused CMI of lying the past, but no one came with facts. See "Does CMI tell “flat out” lies?" - RNA self replication. Talking about "you, too" and "ad hominem".

Carl said: "Speaking for myself, I would definitely try to exhaust the physical explanations for a particular phenomenon before thinking of a supernatural one." That is exactly what creationists do. We don't say for everything: "God did it". That is exactly why we try to explain for example how fresh and salt water fish could survive the flood. We don't just say: "God did another miracle." Although God might have done a miracle to save the fish, the Bible does not say anything about it. Therefore are we trying to search for other explanations.

Carl said: "The Christian approach is to explicitly forbid tests of the existence of its God" How do you want to test for the existence of God? There is a very good case for an intelligent designer.

Andries said: "...I'm worried that your mind is so biased to your own religious agenda..." We all are biased. From my point of view, I cannot understand that you are willing to believe in evolution with absolutely no proof of it. Not even to mention first life and matter/energy.

Don't you think it is subjective not even to consider intelligence as an option? As Paul Nelson said: “Science ough to be a search for the truth about the world. Now we shouldn’t prejudge what might be true – we shouldn’t say: “I don’t like that explanation, so I am going to put it to one side.” Rather, when we come to a puzzle in nature, we ough to bring to that puzzle every possible cause that might explain it. One of the problems I have with evolutionary theory is that it artificially rules out the kind of cause, even before the evidence has a chance to speak. And the cause that is ruled out is intelligence.”

30 Desember 2010 23:15

Andries Malan

My Apologies if things got a bit personal there, but I get frustrated with unscientific claims. (You are an engineer and state that is reasonable to expect a layer of fresh water to lie unmixed for a half a year on top of a layer of salt water, during conditions of a world wide storm & total submersion)

The sources that you quote about salt water & fresh water are not new to me - I consulted at 2/3 of those same ones before I posted.

In fact the first two adds ZERO to the argument. The first one - ghyben/hertzberg lense is about a water table seperated by a whole island body filtration system from the sea. (All earthly bodies were completely submerged so this is completely irrelevant. Again it is easy to understand how sea water pressing its way through porious rock and sand will get stripped of its salinity the further it is pushed up, and as the site states, if you drill too deep, the salt water will instantly get contaminated by sea water).

The 2nd one merely states that water gets more salty because of evaporation and you need to add fresh water to get your salinity down to normal levels. It says nothing about layers of fresh water on top of salt water.

The third source however is very relevant to the topic, since it talks directly about a large mass (seas body) of salt water flowing underneath a fresher body of water. However, this information is not validated, since the writer himself STARTS WITH: "This is not my field, but I'll take an educated guess..."

Thus you have not really come CLOSE to proving that the supposition that a layer of fresh water could rest on a large body of salt water for an extended period of time amid stormy conditions is anything but ridiculous.

PS: Any argument based on where fresh water source flows into a salt water mass (e.g. river), or its opposite, create an inbetween *buffer zone* for as long as there is a FLOW, will not suffice either to prove your point.

---

Yes I am ridiculing the bible, until someone can disprove my rather obvious statements that pulls its validity into question.

Since the bible is something dear to you, I suggest you muster every logical/factual resource and/or intellectual friends available to you, to make this a strong argument.

Andries said: “I am eagerly awaiting you response about Species/Kind & Evolution.”Haven’t I give you an answer on this one on 29 December 2010?

2 Januarie 2011 om 8:13

Andries Malan

No, I am not sure how you reconcile the following:

1. You state that only KINDS (which are a broader grouping than species) were on the ark, rather than individual species

2. Species are reproductively isolated groups - i.e. if two animals cannot produce offspring capable of reproducing, then the two animals are from a different specie.

3. You don't believe it is possible for one specie to evolve into another specie

5. All land animals not onboard the ark, died in the flood

6. Today we see many species of animals, not just the major kinds.

You sit with a conundrum here. You either have to admit that evolution between species is possible, or that all the different species we see today, were on the ark, not just the lesser number of kinds.

If you answered this before, please repeat the core explanation for my benefit in as simplest terms as possible.

2 Januarie 2011 om 13:30

Daniel Louw

1. Only two per kind were on the ark. If all species from all kinds were on the ark (lions, tigers, leopards) then there might not have been enough space on the ark for all species.

2. A mule (which is not capable of reproducing) is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, which are animals of the same kind, but different species. I am not sure if it is always the case that offspring, which have a father and mother of different species, cannot reproduce. What I know is that if animals of different species can reproduce a baby, they are from the same kind - examples are hybrids like zorse, zonkey, tigon, liger and wholphin.

3. I believe that one specie can evolve into another species. That is what breeders do, they produce new species. This is also what happened with Darwin's finches. This is called micro evolution or natural selection - no genetic information is added to get a new species. In fact, genetic information is lost. And this can happen very fast. See Speedy species surprise and Smaller fish to fry.

SPECIE: The definition is very simple. If two animals cannot produce viable offspring (offspring capable of reproduction), then the two animals are of different species. This definition is universally accepted. (Species are reproductively isolated groups)

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Definition of **Micro/Macro-Evolution** from Wikipedia: "Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population."

"The term "macroevolution" frequently arises within the context of the evolution/creation debate, usually used by creationists alleging a significant difference between the evolutionary changes observed in field and laboratory studies and the larger scale macroevolutionary changes that scientists believe to have taken thousands or millions of years to occur. They may accept that evolutionary change is possible within species ("microevolution"), but deny that one species can evolve into another ("macroevolution")."

-----

Therefore you still have the conundrum in that if you believe that:

Only one representative pair was taken from each KIND (which is a bigger collective grouping than individual species)

THEN:

You will be forced to admit that evolution in the darwinian sense - one specie evolving into a different specie - is possible.

There is no such thing as "some species evolve". If you say species evolve, you believe evolution is possible, and accept the darwinian hypothesis.

If you try to redefine "Specie" to mean something else, you have the problem that this is a universally accepted meaning amongst biologists/scientists, and you are the only one trying to imply a different meaning for it. Also you specifically gave examples of KINDS, which clearly are of a higher order collective grouping than specie. (Similar examples can be found on your sources at creation ministeries I am sure).

If you however accept Darwinian evolution or the major part of it - i.e. species evolving into other species, then you are contradicting your source at creation ministeries, which states on several pages that they don't believe in macro evolution.

The issue that all the species couldn't have been on the ark is widely accepted, even by your sources. (950 species of insects alone!!!)

This is the conundrum. I believe you are stuck, between accepting evolution between species, or accepting that an impossible number of species had to be on the ark. Either will conflict with your sources and your previously stated positions.

4 Januarie 2011 om 11:42 NM

Andries Malan

‎(minor correction 950,000 species of insects alone)

4 Januarie 2011 om 11:49 NM

Daniel Louw

Andries said: "Micro evolution does NOT create new species. Only MACRO evolution creates new species."No. Micro evolution is for example where breeders breed new species of dogs. Different dog species are all of the same kind and you don't need additional genetic information to create a new dog species.

Macro evolution requires for example a dog to be born with hoofs or feathers, or scales, or fins, or something like that to become something else. That has never been observed.

Andries said: "Breeding a different color horse, a faster horse, a horse with a longer tail or bigger feet, does NOT create a new species of horse." A faster horse is not necessarily a new species, but breeders did create new species in for example dogs (I don't know horses that well - isn't boerperde a new species?).

Andries said: "These new horses can still breed with other "normal" horses."The test whether something is of the same kind, is the following: If different species can breed, then they are of the same kind. If they cannot breed, they are not necessarily of a different kind, since they could have lost genetic information which prevent them from breeding with one another.

I am not sure whether there is a test for different species. The difference between species can be very small. For example, Darwins' finches only had different beaks, but could reproduce. But they were different species.

It seems there are different definitions for species. That is not important. For now, consider only my (creationist) explanation.

5 Januarie 2011 om 21:06

Daniel Louw

Andries, your silence makes me think that you now see that we do not need to believe in macro evolution for Noah’s flood to be feasible.

I believe that this gives a more than feasible explanation of how fresh water and salt water fish could have survived during a global flood. And then there are also the other options in CF, like all fish could previously have survived in both fresh and salt water but have lost this ability since then.

My brother in law works at DWAF and he says the same thing: in the Hartebeespoortdam, there are different layers of water.

We can argue to and fro about why it was possible for fresh water and salt water fish to both survive a global flood, and why it was not possible, but remember two things:

1. If you judge evolution on the same standard you want to judge Noah’s flood, then you are going to have a problem, since macro evolution has never been observed to happen and is very, very unlikely (as I have said in Dawkins se rekenaaraap and Meer oor waarskynlikhede en Hawking). It is like Dawkins say: “Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”

2. Even though we would probably also not be able to proof the Bible, I believe that it is still better to believe in the Bible than to believe in evolution, since it was written by people that were there – that witnessed what happened. Just like we believe history. Nobody witnessed evolution.

If you disagree that it is better to believe in the Bible, then at least you have to confess that you do not believe in evolution because it is a proven theory, but you believe in evolution because (1) you didn’t know that evolution is not proven, or (2) you choose to believe in evolution because you do not want to believe in a God for whatever reason. Julian Huxley said: “Scientists jumped on Darwin’s Origin of Species because the idea of God was too restrictive to their sexual morals.”

7 Januarie 2011 om 22:18

Andries Malan

Nope my slowness in responding is not due to my capitulating. I fear this debate is going to last a little longer than intended.

A lot of the arguments are more complex than they appear on the surface - primarily because - the creationist apologists have ever more complex/unlikely scenarious that they represent as explanations to resolve biblical contradictions, and thus the more complex new alternatives they present every time their prior arguments are completely obliterated by science, the harder I have to work to debunk the new strengthened myths.

I have so many HUGE problems with the credibility of the bible, that its unlikely to be a quick argument.

However, since I am a truth seeker, not just an annoying debater, I want to take each line of argument as far as possible - with of course the objective to reach conclusions where-ever possible.

Its just time constraints thats been keeping me away, and the amount of research reading I have to do to properly respond, since you are basing your argument on "The Species Problem" (by making the definition of Specie a much more vague concept that the simple idea of reproductive isolation) referencing strange and interesting boundary/exception cases like ligers (tiger+lion crossing) and the galapagos island finches.

It wouldn't be right to respond to those areas, until I have extensively read up on them. When I next respond, I don't want to leave you any room to either use vagueness of definition or strange exceptions and special cases to get around the argument.

That of course is my goal, but I will have to consult the facts to see if there is an obvious conclusion possible to this line of argument. Specifically the problem that you are either forced to accept evolution (in the macro sense), or to accept the ark account as a fallacy since the animals wouldn't have fit.

=======================

Layer of Fresh Water on Top of a Layer of Fresh Water

(I still state that this is ridiculous)

-------------

Thanks for the information on Haloclines.

This at least raises the quality of the debate, because now you are referencing FACTS.

However I don't believe haloclines are a feasible explanation for proposing that large layer of fresh water will sit on top of a layer of salt water, during a massive world wide sea storm, undisturbed for an entire year (or least half a year), for the following reasons:

"Salt fingering is a mixing process that occurs when warm salty water overlies cold fresh water. It is driven by the fact that the molecular diffusion coefficient for salt is much smaller than that for heat. A small parcel of warm, salty water moving downwards into a cold fresh region will thus lose its heat before losing its salt, thus becoming denser than the water around it and sinking further. Likewise a small parcel of cold fresh water displaced upwards will gain heat by diffusion from the surrounding waters, which will then make it lighter than the surrounding waters, and cause it to rise further. Thus the fact that salinity diffuses much less efficiently than temperature paradoxically results in a turbulent process that mixes salinity much more efficiently than temperature."

Especially the little graph at the bottom right that plots temperature against salinity to illustrate what happens inside a halo-cline in the sea:

* The temperature range is approx -1.75 to 1.25 degrees celcius.

* The salinity ranges between 32.5 PSU to 35 PSU

In other words, the salinity only fluctuates from MINUTELY LESS SALTY to MINUTELY more salty - nowhere close to varying between fresh and salt water!

Your argument is shot.***

I still thus maintain: *** It is a RIDICULOUS joke to assert that a layer of fresh water will lie on top of a layer of salt water, during a world wide flood riddled with storms. ***

You have still not come close to showing anyway that is even remotely possible yet.

Therefore I feel quite justified in mocking your source at creation ministeries, stating this as reasonable science, and for you as a trained engineer, stating this as a reasonable possibility.

If you want me to stop ridiculing you about your proposal of salt/fresh water layer seperation, you are going to need to really show how this would be possible.

8 Januarie 2011 om 03:46 VM

Daniel Louw

Andries, you throw many stones for someone who himself stays in a glass house. You have a lot of confidence to say that the Biblical flood was impossible while you believe that life just spontaneously happened. And that one kind of animal just by chance got new genetic information to form another kind.

Andries say: “...since I am a truth seeker, not just an annoying debater...” Nice words, but I find it hard to believe if you use words such as: “I don't want to leave you any room” “Your argument is shot.” “RIDICULOUS joke”

*********

Regarding kinds and species (and subspecies):

Andries said: “SPECIE: The definition is very simple. If two animals cannot produce viable offspring (offspring capable of reproduction), then the two animals are of different species. This definition is universally accepted. (Species are reproductively isolated groups)” I contacted a creationist friend of mine and he agrees with this definition. Interestingly, according to Species, the definition differs: “A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.”

Kind: Larger groups that are not related. Different kinds are for example: elephant family, cat family, dog family, ape family, etc.Species: The different species evolved through natural selection (micro evolution) from the first two animals of a kind. Micro evolution/natural selection can only cause changes in a kind – a fish will stay a fish and a bird a bird. Although all species in the same kind is family, they lost the capability to breed with one another.Subspecies: Different subspecies can still breed with each other.

But forget about the definitions. What is important is that God created two animals of every kind:

Genesis 1(21) And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind (24) And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. (25) And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

There were also two of every kind of animal on the ark:

Genesis 6:20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

These two animals of a kind had all the genetic information for all the species in that kind to evolve by micro-evolution/natural selection. Note, no new genetic information was added. In fact genetic information was lost: You will very highly unlikely again get a Great Dane by breeding only with chiwawas – chiwawas lost the genetic information to be so big again. One looses genetic information due to inbreeding: Yes, with inbreeding one can get a more beautiful German Sheperd, but they struggle with hip dysplasia because they lost genetic information. Also racing horses: one can breed faster horses, but they easily die due to a bad resistance to disease: “When horses are inbred haphazardly, without culling of inferior stock, many undesirable traits may become predominant in their offspring. For example, the inbred horse's ability to resist disease and his overall performance capacity are often depressed. The growth rate of the inbred foal, and the average mature size within the inbred herd, frequently decreases. Nonselective inbreeding is directly related to a depressed fertility rate, an increase in abortion and stillbirth. Some basic principles of genetics show why these traits are directly related to inbreeding.”

With inbreeding you end up losing genetic information. And that is what happens every day. By preventing close family to marry, we try to limit this lost in genetic information due to mutations, but we are only slowing it down. See Mutations: evolution’s engine becomes evolution’s end!.

“Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.”

9 Januarie 2011 om 22:07

Andries Malan

Right, this still means that it is crucial to get to a proper working definition of species and of where micro evolution stops and macro evolution starts, or I need to find a simple logical construct that holds even with more vague definitions.

Just a minor correction to what you've stated above. When wikipedia states that a specie is a group of organisms that commonly interbreeds, that does NOT contradict the definition I've used, which states that a specie is a reproductively isolated group, or that if two animals don't produce viable offspring they are different species.

In fact its just opposite ways of saying the same thing. The one says X is a specie, the other says the opposite of not-X is a specie. (opposite of not X is X).

My goal was not thus far to prove the validity of evolution, merely the self-contradictions in your sources at creation ministeries, and also in the specific flavour of christianity to which you belong.

I still believe you are shifting defintions, or depending on their fuzzy boundaries to escape the argument - but of course, I must still PROVE it.

While you seem to be particularly interested in disproving evolution, my main debate here is not evolution, but specifically disproving the credibility of the bible, for which I have a number of what looks to me like obvious strong lines of argument.

My secondary argument is offcourse discrediting your sources at Creation Ministeries which makes statements so anti-scientific (e.g that it is reasonable to expect a layer of fresh water to lie ontop of a layer of salt water undisturbed for half a year amids a global storm) - that I believe that they are quite deserving of my ridicule.

The fact that you insisted on defending this ridiculous notion, despite several early warnings from me (at first I just HINTED that there is no scientific reason to belief it, then I pointed at obvious though expirements, and as you continued to defend this ridiculous point more and more, I become more and more defiant and obnoxious about this point).

You've gone from one idea to another to try and defend it. You've blundered a couple of times by putting really weak sources down as references.

However, I accept that this argument is so huge and often invokes areas outside our fields of expertise. However, be careful when you tie your mast so strongly to an idea which flies so directly in face of evidence and logic.

This mindset I believe is at the heart of religious believe - specifically what I would consider the more absolutist/fundamentalist/literary interpretation of the bible/inerrancy of the bible, school of thought.

Anyways, I still have a lot of proving left to do. I will not be satistfied by just "pinning" you on one line of argument unless it is really significant to the underlying argument.

Proving Evolution does not automatically disprove the validity of the bible by itself in its totality - it just makes the biblical stories less likely. Many christians in fact do believe in evolution, big bang etc, but they just put God as the causual agent behind this.

(This I believe to be a more scientifically reasonable stance, but you may have your own opinions on the matter).

The ONLY mast to which I steadfastly tie myself - is the statement that the bible is definitely NOT literal truth, and NOT the inerrant perfect and complete word of the God that created the universe.

If you are happy, shall we proceed onto some new lines of argument, or do you have more defenses left for salt/fresh water separation?

PS: Would you be happy to place the species/evolution argument *temporarily* on hold so we can move onto other lines of argument? Or do you feel as strong about this line of argument as I feel about the salt/fresh water layers argument?

9 Januarie 2011 om 11:57 NM

Andries Malan

PS: If you wanted to proceed on the species/kinds/micro/macro-evolution debate, I would propose these items from my side, which specifically answers to your line of argument:

Basically it comes all down to the fact that the distinction between Micro & Macro evolution is not a hard line - here the vagueness of the boundary hurts the creationists, so they insist on a fixed separation, while any specific definition of species or kinds hurts their argument, and here they deliberately make things more vague by not offering anything but anecdotal definitions of what is supposed to be a "Kind" (the "base" kinds created by God) - but no scientifically precise definition is offered.

Not helping the evolutionist side is some complexity in getting to a precise definition of the word species. (Called the species problem)

The definition of species that I used is the most widely used definition, and I quote:

"Most textbooks follow Ernst Mayr's definition of a species as "groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups"

Its also very close to the definition in the American Heritage Dictionary:

"A fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus and consisting of related organisms capable of interbreeding."

In other words, it is saying the exact same thing using opposite words- i.e. If something interbreeds it is the same species - if it doesn't - its another specie.

However I acknowledge the species problem, in that there are special exceptions to this widely accepted definition.

However, your concept of KIND, is truly undefined scientifically. It doesn't correspond with either Species, Genus or any other known concept from biology, nor does those that use it offer a PRECISE scientific definition for the word.

-----

Anyways, because there are some other definitions of the word the species, and despite the fact that the definition I've used is the most widely accepted, it is by know means the whole story - the definition of the "Specie" is a bit more complex, see for example Ring species.

Therefore I am not going to push this line of argument, as I can see its not an easy one to conclude one way or the other, because of some impreciseness in definition. However from the first few links I posted, it should be clear that the argument is definitely not proven for your side either.

Even your argument that "Macro Evolution" creates "new information" and "mutation is deleterious to genetic information".... is easily handled by showing that virusses and bacteria can inject new genetic information into mutations.

Again, as I stated above I am not going to insist on pushing this particular line of argument further for now, since it might either not conclude definitely, or only conclude after extremely detailed, grueling and complex argument.

Still we can come back to it later.

10 Januarie 2011 om 01:10 VM

Daniel Louw

I will come back later to kinds and species. To answer your post on 8 January 2011 at 03:46 AM (when do you sleep? :-) ):

Andries said: “You have still not come close to showing anyway that is even remotely possible yet.” This statement is an exaggeration, don’t you think?

I think you read Halocline too fast. All this article says is that there are things such as haloclines in the sea, even when salt concentrations differ minutely. If the salt concentrations differ more, one would expect the halocline to be even better/more stable.

The article actually says: “In certain high latitude regions (such as the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and the Southern Ocean) the surface waters are actually colder than the deep waters and the halocline is responsible for maintaining water column stability- isolating the surface waters from the deep waters. In these regions, the halocline is important in allowing for the formation of sea ice, and limiting the escape of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Haloclines are also found in fjords, and poorly mixed estuaries where fresh water is deposited at the ocean surface.” This again says that fresh and salt water mixes poorly and talks about stable haloclines.

Regarding salt fingering: Why would the conditions during the flood be the same as for salt fingering to occur (when warm salty water overlies cold fresh water)? With salt fingering you have salty water at the top, which will tend to go down because it is denser. Water’s temperature has a smaller effect on the density of water. According to Water Density Calculator, the following: T = 20 °C, Salinity = 0 mg/l, then density = 998.234 kg/m3 T = 30 °C, Salinity = 0 mg/l, then density = 995.678 kg/m3 T = 20 °C, Salinity = 35000 mg/l, then density = 1024.790 kg/m3 T = 30 °C, Salinity = 35000 mg/l, then density = 1021.755 kg/m3

Thus, you get salt fingering when you have a denser layer at the top. That might happen when there is evaporation of the top layer of water, but if there are clouds in the air, the evaporation will be MUCH less.

To prove to you that a halocline is not a temporary phenomena, see the following youtube videos:

Density tank demonstration Note how, despite a lot of water movement, the two different waters don’t mix, but stabilises to be two separate layers. A storm on the sea will only “stir” the top part of the water, not the total mass of water.

Water Density Note that although temperature difference has a smaller effect in density, one still get very good separation again despite a lot of water movement.

Lab expirements of water seperation often involves super-saturated (or close to super saturated) salt water for the one solution, several orders of magnitude more salty than sea water. If you want to depend on the effect of EXTREMELY satured salt water, this creates a whole new line of argument with a major problem. (If LARGE amounts of salt was added during the flood, it would have left the ocean today worse off than the dead sea)

Furthmore you state that "even the ball and teaspoon" does not mix up the layers. Note that the way the ball is dropped in, is fairly linear, and the way it is carefully pushed down with the back of the spoon (to minimise the horizontal area disturbance)... you will also see small whisps of clouds mixing up in the vicinity of the ball if you look closely.

Wikipedia states that even the motion of the divers tend to mix up the halocline.

Note how the initial conditions are created by CAREFULLY pouring the coloured water OVER THE BACK OF AN UPTURNED SPOON to prevent mixing! Where was the "Upturned back of spoon and careful pouring" - during the great flood?

Note that this expirement video lasts less than a minute. Therefore no conclusion about effects of TIME can be drawn from it.

Also the salinity level/kind of salt is not stated here, but I would again pressume a SUPER CONCENTRATED salt solution as is required to make most of these experiments work.

Also much worse, notice how less than 20 seconds into the expirement, a light blue cloud goes up from the lower level and permeates the upper layer virtually instantly and completely. Thus it can be assumed that if the lower layer is SUPER CONCENTRATED, that already in the first 20 seconds of the expirement, a reasonable amount of salt is added to the top layer (even if its a small amount compared to the bottom concentration, it might be significant compared to fresh water). But primarily, I would like to see what happens after just one day, not even talking about 180 days yet.

This shows temperature only difference, no salinity effect demonstrated. Even though the layering effect is visually impressive, a significant amount of mixing is still immediately evident. Again the effect of time not shown.

4) Video 4 (Mysterious 'dead water' effect caught on film) The drag effect on the ship is interesting, but due to the turbulance created by different layers (underwater waves apparently). Because the fresh water is constantly added from a fresh source - in this case from melting glaciers - it appears as if the affect persists - simply because new fresh water gets added at a rate to offset the dispersion rate. However as soon as the glaciers were to stop supplying new fresh water, the top layer will start to quickly dissappear as the turbulance mixes it.

(The last part of the video demo appears to be fake "illustrative" images rendered, not real image)

I've basically maintained from the beginning that this -what I call - a ridiculous statement - can be disproved by a fairly simple visualisation/though excercise and some common sense.

I appreciate your attempts to use advanced science to find ways to try to show that this would be possible; but so far none hold any water (excuse the pun).

12 Januarie 2011 om 12:49 VM

Daniel Louw

Andries said: “But from your OWN source: (Water Density Calculator) "However, temperature has a greater effect on the density of water than does salinity."” Very interesting!!! I only used this source to calculate the density for different scenarios that I thought was realistic – I didn’t read the article. For the example that I used, salinity played a bigger role than temperature.

Andries said: “These kinds of errors do not help your argument!!!!!!” O but they do! I didn’t think about this. There are now two forces that will cause a halocline: Deep water is both colder and more saline; thus denser. This will help keep the halocline even more stable.

Andries said: “Almost half your argument about salt fingering is thus based on an incorrect fact!” Explain please what you mean. Salt fingering sometimes occur when water evaporates from the top – the salinity increases, because fresh water is removed – density becomes higher than the bottom layer – mixing takes place. The probability of salt fingering becomes much less if the temperature of the water plays a bigger role: the sun warms the top layer of water, but not the bottom layer, thus the halocline becomes more stable, even though the salinity of the top layer increases.

Andries said: “Lab expirements of water seperation often involves super-saturated (or close to super saturated) salt water for the one solution, several orders of magnitude more salty than sea water.” That might well be true, but it is still unbelievable that the layers are so stable.

Wikipedia says: “Underwater cave explorers passing through the halocline stir up the layers.” Looking at the facts, I would rather say that this is a temporary stirring – the layers do not disappear or mix totally due to the divers. One can see that clearly from the video Halocline BBC Planet earth caves.

Andries said: “Where was the "Upturned back of spoon and careful pouring" - during the great flood?” Well, where was the “upturned back of spoon and careful pouring” during all the haloclines that formed naturally? Haloclines are proven phenomena in nature (without using spoons).

Andries said about video 1 “Density tank demonstration”: “Note that this expirement video lasts less than a minute. Therefore no conclusion about effects of TIME can be drawn from it.” Why don’t you test it yourself then. You told me that you are going to proof me wrong.

Andries said: “...already in the first 20 seconds of the expirement, a reasonable amount of salt is added to the top layer” I really don’t see anything. There are some of the dark blue that goes into the light blue (is that what you are referring to?), but if you consider the amount of water movement, that is nothing. Relatively, you will never find such violent water movement in the sea or even in a dam. If you compare the tank in the video with the sea, then really big waves on the surface of the sea will be the same as waves of 1 mm or less on the surface of the water in the tank.

Regarding video 3 “Water Density”: There is again some mixing, but because of the violent water movement, as I have explained above. If this experiment is left for a day or two, the layers will mix, but only because the temperatures of the two layers will become equal to the temperature of the laboratory. But since temperature plays a bigger role than salinity and since deep water (bottom) will always be colder than the top layer, the layers will stay separate in a sea or global flood. And of course helped by the difference in salinity as well.

Regarding video 4 “Mysterious 'dead water' effect caught on film” Andries said: “The last part of the video demo appears to be fake "illustrative" images rendered, not real image” Are you implying that they are misleading people? You realise that this video was produced by NewScientist. Why would they lie? Andries said: “However as soon as the glaciers were to stop supplying new fresh water, the top layer will start to quickly dissappear as the turbulance mixes it.” Do you think so? If that is a fact, then proof it. I think not, because of the two forces that will keep the layers separated: (1) Difference in salinity and (2) difference in temperature (as I have already proven to you numerously now.) Also, it rained for 40 days and the flood lasted for 150 days, which means fresh feed for 40 days. 40 days could have been long enough to form a stable halocline which would have been maintained by the difference in temperature AND difference in salinity between the top and bottom layer. And another thing is that the water came from beneath the earth as well: Gen 7:11 “In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” We don’t know for how long the fountains supplied fresh water. Maybe that happened for even longer than 40 days. We don’t know exactly what happened because we work with historical science.

The bottom line is that you have not proven that it could not have happened.

As I have said in the beginning of this debate on 18 Desember 2010 at 14:59:

1. Good arguments do not necessarily win arguments. One can come with the best arguments, but still not convince the other person. Nobody is really objective. 2. The difference between operational and historical science is a very important issue. Things like evolution, the age of the earth and geology falls in this category. See It’s not science and Science Questions and Answers. 3. All of us have figuratively glasses - the glasses you have on will determine how you interpret the factual data. Ie in geology people dig up things (which are fact) but which need interpretation.

1. Nobody is really objective: not me and also not you. 2. Since we work with historical science, we can only look at data today and speculate about the past. However, I believe that Noah was there and he wrote it down for us. 3. Through your glasses that filters out God, you cannot (or don’t want to) see the possibility of the flood. I, with my God and flood-glasses, see everything perfectly (without violating present science!!!).

I think I rest my case with the salt and fresh water fish. Now I first want to read up about the animal classification (kinds and species) and try to give you an answer there.

13 Januarie 2011 om 22:11

Andries Malan

Ah you are trying to shift the burden of proof onto me - that will not be fair.

It is YOU who is stating that it is reasonable to expect a layer of fresh water to lie ontop of a layer of salt water for half a year amids a global storm, undisturbed.

It is such a ridiculous statement that anyone with common sense can figure out that it is madness to claim such as reasonable.

You have tried to provide examples of expirements and natural phenomena, but so far not a single one comes close to showing how this is possible.

Now you want me to proof that this?

One of your proposals above was that "Why don't YOU do the experiment" (In other words you expect me to do the experiment).

----

OK - If I do the experiment and it proves my point of view, will you abide by the results?

----

You are taking a very simple thing - Your statement that it is reasonable to expect that crazy result (layer of fresh water to float on top of salt water amids global storm for a year) - and trying to make it something very complex, when in fact it is really a simple thing: No reasonable person expects it.

14 Januarie 2011 om 05:10 VM

Andries Malan

PS: Do you seriously want me to respond in DETAIL again to some of your bad science above?

I'll happily create an elaborate and detailed experiment that will PROOF BEYOND A SHADDOW OF DOUBT that your (and creation ministeries) claim is utter nonsense.

BUT: If I do this, I expect you to publicly admit (your website glodiebybel shall suffice for this), that Creation Ministeries make totally unscientific claims that they pretend are science.

14 Januarie 2011 om 05:16 VM

Andries Malan

Just to clarify the position:

Carel-J states that a layer of fresh water, will lie on top of a layer of salt water, undisturbed for half a year or more, during stormy and turbulant conditions.

Andries states that Carel-J has absolutely NO BASIS OF PROOF on which to make this statement. Furthermore, Andries states that in the absence of proof for this, it is a ridiculous joke to believe it, since it contradicts common sense.

Why is the onus of proof on me then? You have to provide evidence since it is your claim. Initially you did so, and everytime I've proven that your evidence doesn't hold.

Now you expect me to provide evidence for the contrary position?

As stated before, we need to share a realistic burden of proof here. I cannot be expected to proof all my arguments, and also proof all the opposites of all your arguments. At some point you are going to be required to provide proof for your own arguments.

So far you haven't provided any proof for your crazy layer seperation idea that holds. I have shot holes into your supposed proofs numerious times, and I am happy to do it one last time (since your previous post contains many problems), but this is getting a bit tiresome.

I'd rather move onto some new points of argument.

But I have a feeling that every question that I pose, will receive an apologist explanation from you, I will then point out serious flaws in your explanation where obvious points of fact&logic is contradicted; you will then respond with ever more long-winded "explanations" (that are full of errors); I will point out the errors; you will then tell me those supposed errors actually strengthen your argument....

(Above you are stating that your contradiction about temperature/salinity effect on density actually strengthens your argument by the fact that there are now two forces at work to keep the layers seperated; When in actual fact, those two forces interact chaotically to create TURBULANCE to stir things up. Furthermore, temperature will be transfered across the two layers, just like the saltiness will diffuse between solutions that are in direct contact)

This whole statements of yours, that it is reasonable to expect these two layers to sit undisturbed on top of each other is so crazy, that I am tired of responding logically to it, I will instead just respond from now on with:

"HA HA Carel-J thinks a layer of fresh water will just sit undisturbed on top of salt water during conditions of a global storm, without mixing, for half a year HA HA HA"

Another non-answer, since it rehashes the same lie as before, and I quote from your source above:

"Salty, subterranean water, erupting onto the earth’s surface, would not have rapidly mixed with the less salty preflood seas."

HA HA.

No scientist believes that salt water will lie on top of fresh water, for 150 days during massive storms, and not mix.

HA HA HA HA

(Note that this argument proposes that the fresh water lay on the bottom, instead of on the top as previously suggested on your other source.... at least this time they don't have to contend with the problem of how the fish GOT to the fresh water... but in this case the mixing would occur even more rapidly, because the proposed layering is reversed)

come-on, these guys are BLATANTLY LYING about basic scientific facts.

Anything based on this layering effect is a joke.

When you put salt water on top of fresh water, or the other way around, they mix.

Any layering can only created under EXTREME SPECIAL CONDITIONS such as careful pouring AND either huge temperature differentials or huge salinity differentials - neither of which differential would persist very long, since both effects diffuse freely as soon as they come into contact.

Then you still have huge storms and turbulence to contend with... imagine massive stirring action effectively.

To an atheist, we could ask: ‘What is your criterion for judging whether something is good or bad? Since you reject God’s transcendent moral standard, all you have are your own feelings. Why should we accept the feelings of an admittedly fallible human being?’

2. Daar is heelwat objektiewe maatstawwe vir etiek beskikbaar, hier is twee goeies: "That which promotes and is conducive to life and thriving" ... "That which promotes the most happiness to the most people".

Nog ‘n argument waarvan ek baie hou is:‘If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.’ (CS Lewis)

Oor:

1) Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral OR 2) Is it moral because it is commanded by God?